WOMEN OF WEIRD TALES 11: ENTER… THE EXPOSITION!

This is one of those stories where someone in a barroom meets a long lost someone else and listens as the lost someone tells how they got so lost, and in between the telling the first someone, the narrating someone, has a multi-page flashback detailing their relationship to the lost someone, because who the heck ever pays attention to anyone when they’re telling their life story?

“The Deadly Theory” by Greye La Spina (May 1942)

Our narrator is in a bar. They’ve bumped into an old acquaintance named Julian Crosse. Julian joined the French Foreign Legion and disappeared in 1914. He’d long been presumed dead. But maybe not, because there he was with his piercing blue eyes, smoking, and sipping gin and tonic. So as the narrator smokes and drinks they listen to this man who may or may not be Julian Crosse tell his story. Except first comes the exposition.

Julian was a painter of the Corot sort. Paintings of ladies. Paintings of ladies in nature. Except it’s only one lady. A beautiful lady. Beautiful paintings too. For a time. Then a change happens. Lady becomes hidden. Beauty’s gone. Something “unhealthy” has seeped into the pictures. Reporters want to know what happened. They track Crosse down and hear a story about sisters. One died. One lost her mind. Julian loved that one. Painted her before her accident and after. Hence the “unhealthiness”. Julian didn’t affirm or deny this story. He said it’s best not to talk about such important things. Then he split for France and the Foreign Legion. First though he said good bye to the Narrator. Goodbye. He said. I loved a woman and she died. Now I’d rather be dead. So I go die now in France like a bridegroom on his wedding day. Backstory done, time now to listen to what this guy who might be Julian Crosse is talking about.     

And so…

Julian met a girl. Her name was Marzha. Her sister was Idell. Their father was a sea captain. Their mother a “passionate” Persian. They died and the girls were left with their Uncle, the Occultist. He home schooled them. There’s no mention of how Julian met Marzha, but he does. And she’s totally great and perfect. She brings Julian home to meet her Uncle, the Occultist. He looks like Moses and always has some occult experiment going on. He likes Julian. Hurray. Hurrah. But Idell the younger sister was not happy at all. She was more highly sexed then her sister and she wanted Julian. But he was like no thank you. So he leaves with the Uncle the Occultist to buy “herbs” in the city. When they come back Idell greets them in hysterics. Turns out Marzha ate some poisoned mushrooms. Turns out Marzha is dead. But wait, Uncle Occultists says, Marzha knew mushrooms too well. She’d never eat a poisonous one. What if Idell did it on purpose! Shock. Surprise. The girl flees. Uncle Occultist gets an idea.

Palingenesis.

That’s the pseudo-science name for the reproductive method of phoenixes. Burn yourself up, get born again. Easy peasy, lemon squeezey. Be reborn. Life after death.  

They built a fire and burned Marzha’s body. An urn was found for the ashes. All of the ashes down to the finest particle. Then there’s more occult shenanigans. Blood. Magic circles. Incantations. The whole shebang. After some time Idell has to get roped into the ritual, because it’s a three person thing. From the urn rises a phantom of ash. Marzha!

Except the body is as it was upon the moment of death, gas-inflated and bloated from the poison’s rapid action. Oops, Uncle Occultist says.

In the aftermath, Julian’s freaked out. Idell’s freaked out. Uncle Occultist is pleased because it’s cool to bring people back from the dead. Marzha’s body is a soulless zombie that needs to be misted with magic blood fluid from a spray bottle like she’s a house plant. The more blood mist she gets the more alive Marzha becomes. Except Idell kills herself unbeknownst to all, swapping in her own blood. Whoopsie, it’s her soul now in Marzha and she still has the hots for Julian! He bales. He bales faster than Christian Bale baling at Bale-Fest. Marzha-Idell is like what! how dare you. Julian smashes the spray bottle. Haha. No more blood. Marzha-Idell dies. Uncle Occultist is sad. Julian skips town and tells the narrator he died in 1915.

But how can that be? Julian is here drinking with the narrator. Suddenly an Old Man appears. It’s Uncle Occultist. He escorts Julian away. But before leaving Julian says, “Some folks never know when to quit.” The pair exits the bar. The narrator decides to get drunk which is saying something because at this point in the story I think they’d already had four scotch and soda. The end.

Next week?

The Great God Pan makes a mess… again.